Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Friday, January 13, 2006

Happy Friday The 13th!

First of all, I wanted to say Happy Birthday to my Dad, who's turning a number divisible by 5. Happy Birthday, Dad!

I've always liked Friday the 13th; I can't really remember ever having a bad one, and some of them have been downright good. Maybe it's because I try harder...

My favorite urban legends debunking site, Snopes, has an entry on Friday the 13th lore. Interestingly, it seems that the superstitions surrounding this day have become a big deal only in the last 100 years:

"Just as Friday was considered an inauspicious day of the week on which to embark upon a new enterprise, so the 13th day of a month came to signify a particularly bad day for beginning a venture. Although regarding the confluence of a particularly unlucky day of the week (Friday) and a particularly unlucky day of the month (the 13th) as a date of supreme unluckiness might seem to be obvious and inevitable, superstitions regarding Friday the 13th are not nearly as old as most people tend to think. The belief in Friday the 13th as a day on which Murphy's Law reigns supreme and anything that can go wrong will go wrong appears to be largely a 20th century phenomenon. (The claim that the Friday the 13th superstition began with the arrest of the final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques Demolay, on Friday, October 13, 1307, is a modern-day invention.) "Books of English folklore generally cite a 1913 Notes & Queries reference as the earliest known expression of Friday the 13th as a day of evil luck, and this corresponds to what we found when we searched The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times for similar references. In both newspapers the first mentions of the ill-fated date occured in 1908, as in this short piece about a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who dared to tempt fate by introducing 13 bills on Friday the 13th..."

3 Comments:

Bubblehead's Mom said...

Dad says thanks for the birthday greetings--we just realized that not only is his age divisible by 5, it is also divisible by 13! (Wow--two prime numbers--what could it be?) We do not believe he was actually born on Friday the 13th, but we have not checked that out for sure. If I turn out to be wrong, I will let you know!

About Me

I'm Joel Kennedy -- a married, 50-something year old retired submarine officer and esophageal cancer survivor with three kids who has finally made the transition to civilian life. Politically, I'm a Radical Moderate. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me. Don't call me at home.)